Anfora Wine Bar

The wine bar craze continues unabated with the arrival Anfora (34 8th Avenue), from the guys who brought you Dell'anima. Open just a few weeks, Anfora is theoretically a kind of homage to what was the main wine vessel for many centuries, though in reality it's just a name for a sleek, almost souless wine bar that can best be described as a work in progress. At worst, one could say it's suffering from the 7 Deadly Restaurant Sins:

#1 Off putting atmosphere - walking into Anfora can seem like stepping inside a rather stinky sock. On our visit, the smell of the ubiquitous grilled cheese sandwich permeated the air and was borderline offensive. No, we did not try the grilled cheese.

#2 Wine Infanticide - yes, we understand that a lot of wine is sold to restaurants too young. But wine bars really need to make sure the wine being served is ready to drink. Certainly most any red from 2008 is too young. It's nice to see a Sicilian Nero D'Avola in the anfora style on the list but it's too young. Ditto for the Bierzo "Petalos" Descendientes de Palacios 2008 (a 2006 is listed on the website but not available). Neither of these wines are anywhere near ready to drink. The list contains a lot of great winemakers and leans heavily on a favorite producer of ours - Lopez de Heredia. Unfortunately, they seem to have some of the less interesting vintages. The Gravonia from 2000 wasn't giving much and is certainly not on the level of the great, slightly oxidized 1999. Their 2000 "Tondonia" Rosado was better but again somewhat muted.

#3 Lack of Info - too many places these days have staff that don't really know anything about the wines. These servers have been told to pour you a taste without actually talking about the wine. It's ok, we actually like to hear something about the wine before you run off to get us a taste.

#4 Not user friendly - the trend among wine bars to pour half-glass or 3oz tastes is welcome since that means we can experiment and mix and match. Anfora has decided to stick with full glass pours and that's too bad. Less for us to try.

#5 Taking our glass away without asking. Ask. Always.

#6 Glassware more important than customers. Note to restaurateurs - dishes should be done in the back so we don't have to compete with glasses for the bartender's attention. A distinct lack of available glasses during our visit meant staff was busy polishing instead of interacting.

#7 Make sure your food matches the wine. Anfora has several spicy dishes that are not wine-friendly - spicy stuffed peppers that don't say so on the menu kill the palate and don't work with wine. Also suspect, spicy shortbread and curry egg salad.

Anfora has a ways to go before it makes the league of the city's best. But the owners may want to take a cue from their restaurant two doors over - the winelist is more interesting and diverse than Anfora. That's a surprise considering this is a winebar.